UK to monitor every journey by every car-"Every trip you take..."

[Clara T]

Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey

From 2006 Britain will be the first country where every journey by every car will be monitored
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 22 December 2005

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

By next March a central database installed alongside the Police National Computer in Hendon, north London, will store the details of 35 million number-plate "reads" per day. These will include time, date and precise location, with camera sites monitored by global positioning satellites.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article334686.ece

[Canuckistanian]

1. Good title quote...

The government as psychotic stalker - good call.

[ddeclue]

2. Bush tried to do this here.

DARPA had a research program called "Cities that See" that got canned when the press got wind of it. No doubt they've found a way to continue it under the radar.

Doug D.

[babylonsister]

3. I look forward to the residents of the UK weighing in on this.

It's doable because it's small, but is it the right thing to do?

[Ilsa]

4. This would really get on my nerves.

Would someone be tracked down and arrested because they have a pattern similar to stalking? Would a person be arrested for spying on an unfaithful boyfriend? Reminds me of that "Majority Report" movie.

[HeeBGBz]

5. Big Brother is everywhere lately

1984 was only 21 years off.

[welshTerrier2]

6. lyrics - "I'll be Watching You" (the Police)

Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
I'll be watching you

[Clara T]

9. HOW THE INFORMATION IS GATHERED

HOW THE INFORMATION IS GATHERED

Fixed cameras at strategic sites

Many thousands of traffic cameras on main roads, motorways, ports and petrol stations will read car numbers using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)

Mobile units

Every force will have a fleet of specially fitted police vans with ANPR cameras. These will work alongside high-speed intercept officers

CCTV in towns & cities

Many existing traffic cameras in towns and cities are being converted to read number plates automatically as part of the new national surveillance network

CONSTANT UPDATES

Police National Computer

The PNC will supply updates on vehicles and drivers of interest to the police

Insurance data

Uninsured drivers will be identified from data provided by the insurance industry

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article334684.ece

[spindrifter]

7. This is totally scary...

I know that the Brits have used their CCTV to do a lot of police work--finding who has assaulted or kidnapped little kids and so forth. They also have these crazy ASBO's--anti-social behavior orders--they can use to get people banned from areas or proscribed from doing various things.--Don't like granny down the street watching you through her blinds--get her an asbo, which can be renewed! This is way too much surveillance. We must not let the sheeple adopt this approach to modern living.

[Clara T]

8. Surveillance UK: why this revolution is only the start

Surveillance UK: why this revolution is only the start
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 22 December 2005

The new national surveillance network for tracking car journeys, which has taken more than 25 years to develop, is only the beginning of plans to monitor the movements of all British citizens. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch in Hertfordshire is already working on ways of automatically recognising human faces by computer, which many people would see as truly introducing the prospect of Orwellian street surveillance, where our every move is recorded and stored by machines.

Although the problems of facial recognition by computer are far more formidable than for car number plates, experts believe it is only a matter of time before machines can reliably pull a face out of a crowd of moving people.

If the police and security services can show that a national surveillance operation based on recording car movements can protect the public against criminals and terrorists, there will be a strong political will to do the same with street cameras designed to monitor the flow of human traffic.

A major feature of the national surveillance centre for car numbers is the ability to trawl through records of previous sightings to build up an intelligence picture of a vehicle's precise whereabouts on the road network.
However, the Home Office and police believe that the Big Brother nature of the operation can be justified on the basis of the technology's proven ability to catch criminals. "In simple terms criminals use vehicles. If you want to commit a crime, you're going to use a vehicle," said Frank Whiteley, the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire, who leads the project. " There is nothing secretive about it and we don't want it to be secret, because we want people to feel safer, to see that they are protected."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article334684.ece

[Catrina]

10. I hope this will be stopped in its tracks

by freedom loving British subjects ASAP. This is simply outrageous. The way it is presented also bothers me, as though there is nothing wrong with it.

I remember the street cameras being destroyed by protestors in Britain a while ago! Why on earth does any government need to know what its citizens are doing every minute? That is an act of war on the people, imo. And to think we used to criticize the Soviet Union!! Imagine if they had done this to their citizens?

How do the British people feel about this? Talk about taking away freedoms!! We don't need terrorist, both the Brits and this administration will make sure to do to their people what they accuse terrorists of doing. I hope there is huge outrage over this.